Robert Lipsyte

Welcome to my Home Page. Hope you are enjoying final weeks of 2009. I'm still on my bike and you should be, too! Please feel free to e-mail any suggestions of what you would like to see on my website. I take editing well.

This has been an interesting year, not all of it good. Susan B. Jordan, the well-known human rights lawyer and the older sister of my wife, Lois, was killed on May 29 in the crash of a small plane in Utah. Flying was her passion, although a friend was at the controls of his experimental plane. She leaves a big hole in our family and a legacy in the world. In one of her most famous cases, the defense of Inez Garcia, she established the right of a wife to kill in self-defense a dangerously abusive husband. Last November, Susan took me up in her own plane. Her joy and my pleasure in the flight is a vivid memory, a gift. Besides Lois and me, Susan left her husband, Ronnie Wong; her daughter, Jenny, and her brother Gene and his wife, Layton, and their daughters Rachel, Mara, Johanna and Sasha. It's still hard to believe Susan's gone. We keep waiting for her to land again.

But books go on. Read "Along the Roaring River: From Mao to the Met" by Hao Jiang Tian with Lois B. Morris. Published last year by Wiley, it got starred reviews from Kirkus and the Library Journal. It's a thrilling tale of a wild Beijing kid who lives through the Cultural Revolution and somehow becomes the first Chinese man to make it big on the world opera stage. Lois and Tian created a one-man show which will debut on PBS as a fund-raising special. It will be on Channel 13 in New York on Dec. 4.

My own latest YA novel, "Center Field," will be published by HarperCollins in March, 2010. It's about a high school center fielder whose position may be taken by an illegal immigrant. What's he going to do about it?

I'll be using THE LIPSITE page for other articles you might enjoy and whatever is currently on my mind. Right now, there's a piece I wrote several years ago for The New York Times on being a YA writer and one on the media and steroids that appeared in TOMDISPATCH. COM, a wonderful political website to which I sometimes contribute.

While you are in a reading mood, pick up my son Sam Lipsyte's latest novel, "Home Land," (to prepare you for his forthcoming "The Ask") and my daughter-in-law Ceridwen Morris' "From the Hips: A comprehensive, open-minded, uncensored, totally honest guide to pregnancy, birth and becoming a parent." Ceridwen's co-author is Rebecca Odes.

A new project for me is hosting LIFE(Part 2), a weekly half-hour PBS show that began airing in mid-September. The show looks at the physical, mental and emotional issues of the boomer generation as it ages. The show is produced out of Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) which has meant trips to St. Paul, Minnesota, a warm city even in winter. I'm writing blogs for the show's website - http:/​/​www.pbs.org/​lifepart2 and will post some here. Since the show airs at different imes in different cities, you'll have to check your listings.

But that doesn't mean I've stopped writing. I'm also working on my memoirs "An Accidental Sportswriter: Lessons from A Lifetime in the Locker-Room." HarperCollins/​Ecco will be publishing it. Dave Hirshey and Dan Halpern are the Head Coaches.

But I've still got time to answer your e-mails. So don't forget to drop me a line.